


coz we're addicted to bleeding hearts

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4x04 AU, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2017, Hurt/Comfort, UA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9637136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: The tears are hot on her cheeks. She sits on the side of the bed and wipes them away, looking around at the room, at the medical kit at, at all the blood. At the cost of loving a hero.-a slightly darker, romantic-Skimmons AU of the 4x04 reunion scene





	

They deal with it in the bedroom. They both prefer it that way. Jemma can cry where no-one can see and well, if Daisy’s going to be lying half-naked somewhere aching and exhausted, it might as well be a bedroom. She does feel a little bad for Jemma’s sheets though, which are smeared with blood the instant she touches them. Of course, Jemma won’t mind, she never minds these sorts of things but to Daisy it’s just another marker of the mess she can’t help making.

So are the tears on Jemma’s face, which Jemma is pretending are not there, not entirely out of stoicism this time but just as much out of rage. Her hands are perfectly gentle and still where she tends to Daisy’s wounds, cleaning and cauterising and stitching with grace and professionalism. But her mouth is a hard line and her eyes avoid Daisy’s, and Daisy _knows._

Daisy knows what this is. It’s a warning and a freezing out both at once. Concern and fury. Love and so, so much hurt. Knowing that she’s done this to Jemma, seeing the shapes she’s carved out of her heart, hurts Daisy so much and so deeply she can hardly breathe. She’d almost rather have the bullet wound. It feels like one – or as good as – when Jemma begins packing up and she’s still hardly spoken a word.

“I – I’m sorry,” Daisy murmurs. “I had to go.”

Jemma clips her suture kit closed with a cold _snap._ She contemplates not saying anything, but for all it feels like she’s just had a poisoned arrow thrust through her heart, she loves Daisy too much to stay silent. She loves those glistening eyes, struggling with the weight of the world. She hates this pain, this endless bleeding, but she knows it’s because Daisy is trying. She knows she would do the same thing. That’s the trouble with them both, after all. They will always hurt themselves, and each other, if it means saving the world.

“No,” she says. She’s aiming for authoritative, but her voice quivers. “You didn’t have to. Not like that, not without telling – us – and… You didn’t have to come back. You shouldn’t have come back.”

 _I wish you hadn’t come back._ She can’t quite make herself say that last part. She can’t believe it. She doesn’t wish that. The world could burn for all she cares, even though she knows they’d both die to save it.

“I didn’t mean to lie to you,” Daisy says, almost pleading. “I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t say goodbye. I couldn’t bear the thought of…of never seeing you again. I only wanted it to be temporary.”

“Life is temporary.” Jemma prods Daisy’s wound, and she grimaces. “This is temporary. What if you’d been too late? Or it had been a few inches higher? What if your ribs had broken instead and pierced your lungs and you’d suffocated to death in some alley somewhere?”

“I’m _sorry,”_ Daisy repeats. “I love you. That’s why I came back.”

“Find somebody else next time.”

“I can’t do that. You know you’re the only one for me.”

“I can’t do _this,_ Daisy.” And there she has it, the heart of the issue. The reconciliation at last of, go away, come back. The unsolvable problem. “I love you, but I can’t do this. You don’t get to walk out of my life and then come back on your deathbed and demand that I save your life.”

It stings, and Daisy almost swears her heart has skipped a beat. Biting her lip, holding it in, she struggles into a sitting position and struggles to the edge of the bed. Pain lances through her wound like a knife and she ignores it. She has to get out of here. This was a mistake.

But Jemma puts her hand on Daisy’s shoulder, and pushes gently. At her instruction, Daisy lies down again, and she can breathe again, and Jemma finally looks at her. Really _looks_ at her, in her pleading eyes, desperate for some answer to the problem that they keep facing.

“I never asked you to save me,” Daisy insists.

“How could I not, though?” Jemma replies. “The world needs you. I need you.”

The tears start falling from her face, dripping off her eyelashes where she is leaning over Daisy. She takes Daisy’s hands in her own. It’s like the tears are washing the anger and the pain out of her, and she can hear Daisy’s uneven, agonised breathing, and all she wants to do is hear it fall smooth and steady again. All she wants to do is soothe. That’s what Daisy came here for. That’s why she couldn’t find anyone else. She’d beat herself into the ground if she has to for her cause, but once she there, she needs Jemma. Not stitches, not salve, not painkillers. Jemma. Love. Faith. Strength. Comfort. It’s the only thing that ever truly keeps her going. The only thing that she truly lacks, that she had truly been giving up when she’d walked out on Shield.

“I need you, too,” Daisy whispers, and squeezes Jemma’s hand gently. “I’ll always come back. You know that, right?”

“You can’t promise me that, Daisy,” Jemma whispers, the tears hot on her cheeks. She sits on the side of the bed and wipes them away, looking around at the room, at the medical kit at, at all the blood. At the cost of loving a hero.

“What if I promise to try?” Daisy suggests.

Jemma turns back to Daisy, and the expression on her face is complex. Hurt, love, anger, and a painfully gentle sort of forgiveness. Her own hands and Daisy’s are still joined, and still covered in blood, but she leans over and kisses Daisy’s chapped lips and feels her breath catch, waiting for an answer.  _Is this a goodbye kiss?_ Daisy’s lips wonder, catching Jemma’s for an extra second before she can pull away.

“Promise me it’s worth it,” Jemma breathes. Daisy almost laughs.

“Is the world worth it?” Because sometimes, that’s really what’s at stake.

Jemma shakes her head. It’s not. Or at least, it feels like it’s not, even though she knows better. She knows she would do the same herself, and she has done, plenty of times. She’s jumped on a grenade. Thrown herself out a plane. Subjected herself to torture and the risk of brainwashing so that others didn’t have to and so that critical missions could go ahead. She’s left Daisy, left Fitz, left them all, for much the same reason as Daisy has now, and she only lived because they’d had the thought to have someone extract her.

 _Life is temporary. This is temporary._ But the world is more than that. More than temporary. Bigger than them, as individuals or together. They both understand that, on a painfully molecular level. It’s how they’d fallen together so deeply in the first place. It’s the choice they will always make. The promise they’d walked into together.

Daisy tugs on Jemma’s hand, drawing her out of solemn thought.

“It’s worth it,” Daisy promises. “And I will always try. I love you.”

Jemma’s eyes trail down Daisy’s body, still half naked and patched with sweat and blood except for the clean area around the bandage. She runs a finger gently over the clean and bandaged wound. She’s proud of her handiwork, proud of keeping Daisy safe. She always has been. This is how they save the world.

“I love you too,” she says.


End file.
